


Crucified

by rap_ture



Category: Everyman HYBRID, Slender Man Mythos
Genre: Fighting, Violence, basically it's just steph trying to vibe and HABIT ruins it, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23259382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rap_ture/pseuds/rap_ture
Summary: "Where was the Damsel that fought back? I miss her very much," he snarkily added, bearing his teeth in a twisted little grin. He knew very fucking well where she went, Damsel bitterly thought, peering in between her fingers to catch HABIT staring right back at her with those fucking eyes. He's taking her away. He's taking all of me away.
Relationships: HABIT & Stephanie (Everyman HYBRID)
Kudos: 22





	Crucified

**Author's Note:**

> this is pretty much just my musings of steph (with HABIT included, of course) and i don't know if i'll elaborate more and write more about it, but we'll see. it's kind of a mess and i don't know if i like it but here we are.

She assumed the house would've been deadly quiet — the kind of silence that would drive anybody _absolutely_ insane — mainly because the lack of friends going in and out ceased to exist. But she was wrong, yet once again. If anything, the house tended to bustle more and more as the days progressed but it wasn't in the most positive way — unless you counted your boyfriend (no, that's not your boyfriend, she had to remind herself — _HABIT_ ) slaughtering innocent people continuously a positive thing. Hopefully, you didn't.  
  
He didn't bother her unless _he_ was bored — well as bored as he could get when it came to torturing whatever came in his path — and most of the time their interactions involved weapons of some kind, whether it was Damsel having to protect herself (what a funny name for somebody who's definitely _not_ one) or HABIT attempting to hurt her. Which, since he's an all-powerful entity and what-not, she had no choice but to take it. Their — _his_ — games were never fun. She learned that the hard way.   
  
When she was left alone, such as now, she focused all of her attention on art. Drawing, painting, whatever came to her in her mind, she'd frantically scribble it across whatever surface she could use with whatever could produce marks — the walls in her rooms had drawings spread across it, depicting nightmarish images of her stomach being ripped open, her baby getting eaten in front of her own eyes. Other drawings on other surfaces (mainly on the floor, sometimes on the dresser) she would paint — or carve, using her measly pocket-knife she carried since she was twelve — other images. Maybe they weren't as awful and detailed as the ones on the wall, but she worked just as hard on them, attempting to convey the emotions as well as she could.  
  
"You know, if the _fans_ didn't eat that sad girlfriend shit up, I'd tell you to scrub that off the walls. Maybe you could even re-paint it, not the pictures, but the whole fuckin' wall itself. That'd be pretty nice, huh? Though _I_ think it was sweet of you to put all that detail on me." He suprised her, yet once again, leaning simply against the doorframe, his expression showing slight boredom. When had the bedroom door opened?   
  
She didn't answer, keeping her eyes trained dead ahead of her on the drawing in front of her. The picture depicted HABIT mid-sawing through her stomach with ease, his face contorted with a warped grin. A horrifying look. It didn't take long for her to flashback to that night, how HABIT had pounded and beat that door down with his bare fists and how she was ready to fight back, ready to try and make a stand despite her being littler than him — she pinched her thigh hard to take her right back to here and now. Without pausing, she simply dipped her two fingers in the paint and smeared it across his face in the painting. "You don't care about what they want. Or me, for that matter." She hated how tiny her voice sounded compared to his sometimes.  
  
HABIT nodded in agreement, his lower lip puffed out as he made his way closer to her, settling himself down on her bed carelessly, leaning a bit to check around the walls. She saw his shadow fall over her, ominous imagery that did not help settle her stomach, which was beginning to knot itself into a pretzel. His energy, his aura — he was holding himself back. She knew he came in here with the intent of hurting her. It felt tense; like when a lion is watching the gazelle through the grass, ready to pounce. "Yeah, you're right. Take it down." HABIT spoke calmly, dusting his hands off.   
  
" _What_?"   
  
"You heard me _loud_ and clear. Do you want me to repeat myself, because I don't think you'd want that, now would you?" He grinned harmlessly but she knew better than that. Nothing about him was harmless. His voice was jovial, but a threat was laced just very carefully underneath his words. She couldn't help it; she turned her head to look at him, a desperate expression growing on her face.  
  
"But I worked so hard on this, you can't just —"   
  
"I can't?" HABIT quickly stopped her right there, his eyebrow arching in an amused gesture. Damsel was well aware that her desperation for her art to stay up was something that entertained HABIT greatly but she couldn't help it, she worked so hard to make it look the way it did, to put all the emotion she felt into the artworks to make it radiate that gloomy and gory emotion — and he wanted it gone.   
  
"You don't ever come in here, why does it matter? I —"   
  
HABIT held his hand up, effectively shutting her up. He slid off the bed, down onto his knees, crawling towards her slowly — she didn't budge but he couldn't miss the way she started shaking in fear. He grasped her chin tightly, forcing her to turn her head so they were eye to eye. It was hard to look in his eyes. Those weren't _his_ eyes and yet — and yet they were. She couldn't see Evan with those eyes, only HABIT. It took willpower to not smack his hand off and kick him away.   
  
" _I_ can do what _I_ fuckin' want, and if that means I want you clean up your mess, then _you're_ going to clean up your mess like the good little girl that you are. For somebody who acts like a skittish bitch around me, you sure can get bitchy sometimes."   
  
Damsel could only stare at him, her eyes wide and nervous — but defiant too. He could respect a defiance like that if it wasn't something that was questioning _him._ She didn't speak, simply shifting away to look more at the painting, his hand still cupping her chin, giving him a side-eye. She couldn't stop looking at his eyes. His eyes were darker, she noticed, whenever HABIT was the one in control. And that was so odd to her, how his eyes changed — how'd they flash from being so light and kind to being dark and hard to look at. But wasn't everything nowadays odd?   
  
"Bitchy," she repeated almost numbly, her eyebrows slightly raised. "If you think that's bitchy, then how do you react to when girls are on their period?"   
  
HABIT didn't respond for a moment; though he did let out one of those cackles, which made her eyes close and lean away from him more until the laughter stopped. "Damn, you're on a roll today, aren't you? Look at you go!" He mockingly pinched Damsel's cheeks, making little cooing sounds as if he was with a baby. Then, just with a metaphorical snap of the fingers, his mood did an entire switch and the playful pinching became him digging his nails harshly into the skin, pressing her face into the wall. The painting didn't smear, but Damsel _swore_ that the harsh pressure would make it and for some reason, that panicked her more than the fight she could smell brewing.  
  
"Alright, baby-doll, we'll do this the _hard_ way then." He released her, stomped out of the room, and returned with paint. It was like he planned for this moment and that made Damsel's blood boil — she didn't know what she expected, seeing as HABIT thrives on genuinely hurting anybody who crosses his path, but it agitated her nonetheless. He slammed the paint bucket down, grasped her hand and the second she stiffened it, he pressed his face against the side of her head, his breath tickling her ear. "Remember the last time you tried that tensing up shit? How I easily cracked every single one of your fingers like it was nothing? We _can_ recreate that if you want." She could feel the grin grow and her shoulders tensed more; but she relaxed her fingers almost immediately. " _There we go._ "   
  
He proceeded to dump her hand into the white paint until it was fully submerged, and, as she watched in horror, he smeared her hand all across the painting on the wall, beginning to cover it up. And the anger ate away at her heart more and more, her eyes watering — but she refused to let him see that, so she angled her head away. It seemed pathetic now that she had gotten so upset over that art, but after everything she lost, it was all that she had, really. Evan was barely there. Art was the only escape she could turn to and _he_ was beginning to take that away from her too. Like how he took everything else.   
  
Without thinking, she slammed her head back against his as hard as possible, jerking away from him and in the struggle, she carelessly knocked over the paint can, spilling it everywhere. He laughed loudly and without humor, simply clasping her wrists together and pinning her thrashing body against the ground, pressing her face in the growing puddle of paint. "See, you're just makin' it _worse_ for yourself! Could've just covered it up and called it a day, but no."   
  
She would've told him to go fuck himself if it wasn't for the fact that she was drowning in paint. He would've made it worse no matter how she reacted — he thrived on reactions. If she didn't give him one, then he'd dig it up himself. She thrashed around more frantically, struggling for air — her lungs _burned_ it was beginning to get hard to breathe, her nails couldn't find any purchase on the ground to help boost her up and the pressure of him _sitting_ on top of her back didn't help her cause.   
  
"Are you _sorry_?" He trilled mockingly, straddling her back casually, his hands spread across her shoulders to keep her held down. She nodded wildly and he pretended to not see for a few seconds — then he wrapped her hair around his fist once more, forcibly moving her head up. She gasped loudly, greedily breathing heavy for more air, eyes squeezed shut to avoid any more paint seeping into her eyes. "Good girl. Y'know, bad girls lose their privileges. They don't get to paint anymore! See, I'm being the fantastic being that I am, letting you fuck the walls up with your mediocre art —"  
  
"— My art is _not_ mediocre! —"  
  
"— And you repay me, by being, quite frankly, a stupid cunt."   
  
Damsel went limp, her hand shakily reaching up to take off her glasses — which felt broken, once again — setting them down on the bed beside them. She didn't say a word, focusing more on trying to wipe the paint out of her eyes but she could barely do that, seeing as her hands were beginning to shake frantically. She compared the shaking to a rabid animal and for a sick moment it felt as if she was about to giggle. This was _not_ the time to be laughing it up. It took strength to keep herself from crying out, from just _falling_ apart like a tower of blocks crashing down after one block gets jerked out, but she barely had any strength left. It was like dangling from a cliff with a broken fingernail. "I'm sorry," she softly murmured, her eyes tearing up again — not just in sadness but anger too; there was nothing that hits your pride harder than having to apologize.   
  
"What was that?" HABIT's face wrinkled in fake disbelief, head arched close to her as if he couldn't hear her apology.   
  
"You _fucking_ heard me, I'm not repea —"  
  
HABIT tightened his grip around her hair, forcing her head back further. She bit down on her tongue hard to muffle a pained whimper, trying to stare ahead and look at the wall, at her ruined artwork. That hurt more than the fighting did, in her opinion — he knew how much her artwork meant to her. He _knew_. It really would be a matter of time until he finally broken her down and he was sure as hell getting close. "Sorry, couldn't hear that! Wanna shoot your shot again and get your pretty little head cracked open like a fuckin' egg or do you wanna try that apology out again?" There was something dangerous simmering underneath his tone, one that made Damsel's heart beat a lot harder against her chest.   
  
"I'm _sorry._ I... I should've listened. I shouldn't have fought against you." She said, her voice getting quieter and quieter at the end. "Please let go of my hair."   
  
And he did, thankfully, he even climbed off of her, dusting his hands off once again on his jeans. He watched her slowly push herself up onto her bed, leaving white streaks along the blankets. She tried to wipe as much paint off as she could on her pillowcase and when most of it refused to come off, she bursted into tears. She doesn't know why _that_ , of all things, set her into hysteria but it is what it is. HABIT continued to watch, adjusting his cap, fixing his hair, his fingers twitching, itching to just — _shut her the fuck up_. Maybe he could, he could stuff his fingers down her mouth and rip her tongue out and she could choke on the river of blood and maybe HABIT could even stuff her tongue back in his mouth and she could fucking choke on that too, for all he cared. Maybe he could rip off her entire jaw.   
  
However, he simply sat down by her body on the bed, watching her cry into her hands, her body shaking with the exertion. He gave her such a disappointed look but it wasn't genuine; behind it, just the way his lips curled at rhe edges, the way his inhumane eyes lit up, showed that he was having a blast. "Oh, sunshine, but why are you crying?"   
  
Damsel couldn't stop crying, it was as if a dam had broke but the dam was her eyes — his presence, just the fact that he didn't leave her there made the completely hopeless feeling _worse_ , if that was even possible. "I'm sorry, I'll stop, I'll —"  
  
"Where was the Damsel that fought back? I miss her _very_ much," he snarkily added, bearing his teeth in a twisted little grin. _He knew very fucking well where she went_ , Damsel bitterly thought, peering in between her fingers to catch HABIT staring right back at her with those fucking eyes. _He's taking her away. He's taking all of me away._  
  
"You — it's _your_ fault, you're doing this, I can't —"  
  
"You can't what? Use your words, I can't understand you!"   
  
Damsel couldn't help but sob harder, moving away towards the other side of the bed, hiding her face into the pillow and muffling her crying in it, hugging it to her face as tightly as she could.   
  
"What happened to _'I don't cry'_ , Stephanie? I remember you saying that clear as day, hummingbird. See, I remember the beginning of this whole little getting to know each other thing, do you? You were such a feisty little fucker, God, you argued about everything. _Everything._ Whatever you tried to use against me, physically or verbally, you could. Admirable. Stupid as absolute fucking hell, but the defiance was hot. Now you're a fucking mess. Look at you," he pouted at the end playfully, making a _tsk-tsk-tsk_. "You're losing on your hold on everything. You —"  
  
" _And that was your fucking fault! You've done this!_ " Damsel couldn't hold back the shriek she released, a shriek that held pent up rage and if she wasn't still shaken up from the previous fight, she would've proved that she still had the fire in her (but does she?) she would've shaken him and punched him until her knuckles split, until she passed out from the fucking exertion of her attack, she would've proven him _wrong_ but she only kept her face muffled in that pillow, her body trembling with rage.   
  
"Ooh! There we go!" HABIT let out a snarl, a pleased sounding snarl crossed with a chuckle, rolling Damsel over onto her back — which she let him — looming over her, his voice pitching so it sounded sickeningly like Evan's. "You better find that one thing that'll fix your depressive shit right up, sunshine, you're not leaving _just_ yet. You wouldn't want Evan to be lonely, huh?"   
  
Damsel remained silent, her lower lip wavering, eyes widening. _He's going to take me all away_ , she thought once again, her eyes slowly shifting over to look at the wall beside her bed where the painting once laid — she remembered the painting and whether it was on purpose or not, the parallels between this scene between them versus the one that happened in the past was very relevant. However, past Damsel wasn't too aware of HABIT. That Damsel was stronger, mentally, she thought she could've fought HABIT as much as she wanted without a doubt, she could handle it, how was he worse than what she's already been through?   
  
"You are _taking_ the things I love away, what do you not understand about that?" She spoke as venomously as she possibly could, slowly sitting herself up and wiping her tear-soaked face, her eyes burning, her face itching and caked on with paint.   
  
"Oh, I'm aware. That's unfortunate for you, isn't it?" HABIT retorted, his grin widening until it looked like it'd split his face in two. "You look like a fuckin' disaster. Clean yourself up. Clean your room up too, this paint smell is giving me a headache. Maybe if you're _good_ and don't complain, I'll give you a piece of paper and a crayon." His grin never wavered once, leaning forwards until he bumped noses with Damsel, acting as if he would bite her. She didn't move an inch.   
  
"Anyways, see you later, alligator!" He shouted happily, giving her thigh a hard slap, pushing himself up and glancing from the wall to her with an obviously pleased expression. She only stared at him, her face vacant enough but it didn't take a genius to see something was simmering underneath, whether it was a pure pissed off violent type of anger, or an angry determination or maybe it was both; it wasn't known. But it was there. And _that_ was why HABIT kept her around. She would run herself right in the fucking ground with her stubbornness — she would fight and fight against him until she finally died and it will happen. He _will_ slaughter her one day, he'll make her death something he wouldn't forget. She thinks he'd be the one to finally destroy her, but wouldn't it be herself? 


End file.
